They conducted the test while docked in St. Maarten. It wasn't in the open ocean. The ship is in service 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 52 weeks a year, except for dry docks. Testing must be done. It's a hell of a lot better than testing it in the open ocean and having it fail. Testing is done to make sure if it does fail it fails at a time that will have the least impact on the guests. You could turn on the generator and say "OK, it powered up." but if you don't actually make the test and test the switch you are not testing a major component of the system.

Every cruise you have ever been on that was seven days or longer had this "test" done. On shorter cruises they may do it every other cruise.

All UPS testing is done on a regular basis in all business and on "live" systems. The Federal Reserve in Minneapolis does their every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m..

Take care,
Mike

your spot on...at the hospital I work at we test the back up generators every week, and they take the full load...we had an issue a year ago where all systems seemed fine, the emergency generator came on line and then had major problems, which blew breakers, overloaded some circuits and damaging some other equipment...no one "planned" this nor did no one not do proper maintenance...we are regulated pretty hard by the Joint Commission, the Federal and State Governments...mechanical systems can all check out and seem fine and then fail fast...it took us calling for emergency generator from another state, patching some circuits and transferring patients to multiple other hospitals....
Carnival actually testing the system shows they are maintaining their ships...the Dream was not in any trouble, but without the emergency generator they could not safely go to sea...if they were as many of you are accusing "saving money" they would have sailed anyhow...the legend...it is a pod malfunctioning which is mainly used for steering - remember how these ships move sideways...they also help keep the ship steady in a direction while under power...so the ship is slowed a few knots big deal...as for why Carnival...last I looked they have more ships then all the others...any system running 24/7/365 will have problems from time to time, but these ships, some running for well over 2 ears without a problem and now one having a major problem - well a fire that could have been major but was controlled that was caused by a leaking line, and these other two do not in anyway show some kind of maintenance problem or going "cheap"...just shows mechanical stuff can and will break when you don't want it too..
Also as some suggest that Carnival is skimping on maintenance to save a buck makes no sense at all when it costs them not only in negative publicity, but also all the costs and loses of money in revune...even the insurance company they use will raise their rates or cancel them if they are not doing it right...some of you really need to stop watching CNN, Fox, etc and repeating everything they say as "proof" or "fact"